Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu

Happy new year! Here are two Japanese New Year traditions. Nengajou, or New Year's postcards, are one. It's always a pleasure to receive these on New Year's Day, and the following few days as well. The other tradition is this ornamental mochi, called kagami (mirror) mochi. It is called kagami mochi because it is the same shape as a very old kind of round copper mirror.

Home alone again today so at 0730 I paid my respects at Ebbisu Shrine. Later, I partook of a more contemporary New Year custom; buying Happy Bags. Many shops fill bags with goods and sell them at greatly discounted prices. These are not randomly selected goods as all the bags have exactly the same items in them. Maybe you don't want everything in the bag but the goods are so reasonably priced that it is worth buying them anyway. I bought three ¥4,000 shirts plus two ¥1,000 ties for ¥5,000.

In the afternoon I went to see The Hobbit. This is another tradition for me, and possibly other people too judging by today's attendance, because January 1st is always Cinema Day. That means every cinema charges ¥1,000 for admission rather than the usual ¥1,800.  I really enjoyed the movie. It could have done with a little editing here and there but at least it wasn't as interminable as King Kong. It was great to see so many great actors back from Lord of the Rings, especially Andy Serkiss as Golem and Christopher Lee as Saruman. Biggest goosebumps moment for me, though, was the appearance of The Ring Theme when Bilbo spotted Golem's "precious."

Great start to the year. Tomorrow should be even better as my kids will come back from Granddad's. Hurrah!